Cole County cleans up after severe storms Monday night

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Power was restored over the course of the day in Jefferson City following strong storms Monday night.

Most of the work involved removing trees, especially on the west side of town near Highway 50 and Rainbow Drive.

Last night when Edward Sackett stepped outside, he saw the storms moving in.

"Next thing you know, the wind picked up and it roared and I took off running. I ran into the house, all of this stuff started blowing just in time. Just in time I got inside and told everybody get into the basement quick, quick," said Sackett.

About ten minutes later he came outside to widespread damage in the yard.

Luckily, both of his dogs were in their houses at the time and were okay.

Several neighbors shared similar stories.

"Lightning struck a tree in the back, about half the tree fell down, hit the house, and blocked the driveway," said homeowner Amy Meisel.

People were left cleaning up their yards, chopping wood wherever trees are down and raking up debris around the Capital.

Jefferson City Public Works Director Matt Morasch said, "Most of the trees are on private property, obviously if they blew into the road we'd clear them back, if it's a tree, we'd haul that away but generally most are on private property, we try to cut them up but then we put them back on that person's property."

Public Works officials said crews were out cleaning up messes like this all day.

Morasch said, "We actually brought in a crew of four to five guys in the middle of the night, starting at about 1:00 a.m. and they worked through the night and are still working right now, then we got couple of extra crews working with them today."

"It could have been a lot worse, I'm just glad nobody got caught in it real, real, bad. No tree fell over on them or nothing like that, thank goodness for that," said Sackett.

If you have debris, the trash collector will not pick up tree limbs, leaves, or wood chips.

If you live in city limits, you can bring your debris to the yard waste drop off location at 24-17 Southridge Drive. They are open from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.